People

Many people are anointed in the Hebrew Bible, and many are referred to as the messiah or anointed one. The high priest is called the anointed priest (Lev 4:3). God tells Elijah to anoint two different men as kings of their people: Hazael as king of Aram (1Kgs 19:15) and Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel. God also instructs Elijah to anoint his own successor, Elisha son of Shaphat, as prophet (1Kgs 19:16). At this point, the term messiah or anointed one did not refer to the apocalyptic savior of humankind.

The Persian emperor Cyrus is the only foreigner in the Bible to be identified as the messiah or anointed one of Yahweh, the Israelite God. Isaiah tells us that Yahweh spoke “to his messiah, to Cyrus, whom I [Yahweh] took by his right hand to subdue nations before him” (Isa 45:1). The other people called messiah or anointed one in the Bible aren’t designated Yahweh’s messiah, as Cyrus is.

Cyrus the Great (559–530 B.C.E.), whom Isaiah 45 calls Yahweh’s anointed, was the Persian king of Fars, a southern province of present-day Iran. By 546 he had defeated the wealthy king Croesus of Lydia (in modern Turkey), and the Lydian capital of Sardis fell to him along with all the other cities of Asia Minor. Cyrus then turned his attention to the most powerful kingdom in Central Asia: Babylon. By the end of 539, he had taken Babylon and captured its king, Nabonidus. The Persian Empire founded by Cyrus extended from the Aegean to Central Asia.

Who is this prophet who identifies Cyrus as Yahweh’s shepherd and anointed?

Second Isaiah, author of Isa 40-65, probably lived in Babylon during the late exilic period (late sixth century B.C.E.). We know he wrote after 539 because Isa 40-65 mentions Cyrus the Great.

What does it mean to be called Yahweh’s anointed, as Cyrus is called by Second Isaiah? We know that the title always refers to the ruler of Judah. To the biblical writers, however, the term Yahweh’s anointed is more than a title. It also connotes a theology. Yahweh’s anointed is the legitimate king appointed and protected by God. In the Psalms, he is idealized and mythologized.

How, then, knowing the full theology associated with the term Yahweh’s anointed, could Second Isaiah have applied this title to Cyrus, the Persian emperor?

Whenever Cyrus or his son and successor Cambyses extended the mighty Persian empire, local priests of powerful temples would apply the titles and theologies of their own kings to their Persian conquerors.

Second Isaiah appears to have done the same.

After Cambyses successfully invaded Egypt, the local priests hailed him as pharaoh, or King of Upper and Lower Egypt. In Babylon, too, Cambyses was hailed as the Babylonian crown prince and, later, as king at a New Year’s festival reserved for the legitimate Babylonian monarch.

Why did the prophet Isaiah, the priests of Marduk, and the Egyptian priests bestow this honor on Cyrus?

First, self-interest. These priests tied their own successes to the success of their conquerors. Second, the priests recognized that the restoration of their temples depended on the good will of the Persian leader.

The famous Cyrus Cylinder, a 10-inch-long inscribed clay barrel bearing the story of Babylon’s “liberation” by Cyrus, tells how Cyrus, with the help of the Babylonian god Marduk, restored worship at temples where Nabonidus had removed the cult images and brought them to Babylon.

But there was a third, more powerful reason that he and other priests collaborated with their conquerors: they believed the Persian invaders had the local gods of the conquered nations on their side. How could they have conquered these nations if the local gods had not allowed it? Isaiah too knew that Yahweh had brought Cyrus to conquer Babylon and return Judeans to their homeland.

This article was adapted from “Cyrus the Messiah” in Bible Review 19, no. 5 (Oct. 2003), published by the Biblical Archaeology Society.

Contributors

Lisbeth S. Fried is visiting scholar at the University of Michigan’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. She is the author of The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire (Eisenbrauns, 2004) and Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition (University of South Carolina Press, 2014). She is preparing a criticalcommentary onNehemiah for Sheffield Academic Press.

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The island-filled sea between Greece and Turkey, which opens to the Mediterranean sea on the south.

A term from late Antiquity, it refers to the western-most part of Asia, bordered by the Black, the Mediterranean, and Agean Seas, in what is now modern-day Turkey.

Of or relating to ancient lower Mesopotamia and its empire centered in Babylon.

A system of religious worship, or cultus (e.g., the Israelite cult). Also refers to adherents of that system.

A broad, diverse group of nations ruled by the government of a single nation.

A West Semitic language, in which most of the Hebrew Bible is written except for parts of Daniel and Ezra. Hebrew is regarded as the spoken language of ancient Israel but is largely replaced by Aramaic in the Persian period.

Relating to or associated with people living in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel during the divided monarchy, or more broadly describing the biblical descendants of Jacob.

The people of the tribe of Judah or the southern kingdom of Judah/Judea.

A Babylonian deity who becomes the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, as recounted in the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish.

A sovereign head of state, usually a king or queen.

The last ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruled from 555–539 B.C.E. Nabonidus promoted worship of the moon god Sin over the national god of Babylon, Marduk. Nabonidus spent much of his reign at the oasis of Tayma in the Arabian desert, leaving his son Belshazzar in charge of the empire. Nabonidus was defeated by the Persians under Cyrus in 539 B.C.E.

Writing, speech, or thought about the nature and behavior of God.

Lev 4:3

3If it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull of the herd without blemish a ... View more

1Kgs 19:15

15Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.

1Kgs 19:16

16Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

Isa 45:1

Cyrus, God's Instrument1Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,whose right hand I have graspedto subdue nations before himand strip kings of their rob ... View more

Isa 40-65

God's People Are Comforted1Comfort, O comfort my people,says your God.2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,and cry to herthat she has served her term,that her pena ... View more

Isa 40-65

God's People Are Comforted1Comfort, O comfort my people,says your God.2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,and cry to herthat she has served her term,that her pena ... View more

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